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AS somebody once said, good things come to those who wait. Case in point: “Araya,” which is receiving its New York theatrical premiere half a century after it won two prizes at Cannes.

Not that the mesmerizing film, directed by Margot Benacerraf, looks 50 years old. In fact, it has a timeless look — and that’s a compliment.

Araya is a vast salt marsh on a peninsula in the northeast coast of Venezuela.

The film, shot in luscious black and white by Giuseppe Nisoli, depicts with quiet charm the lives of the area’s men, women and children as they go about what the narrator calls a “daily life [that] endlessly repeats its same gestures.”

The residents toil day and night harvesting salt, and subsist on the fish they catch themselves. They have little or no contact with the outside world, and seem to accept their lot in life.

But, as we learn, industrialization was coming to Araya, signaling an end to a centuries-old lifestyle.

I’m not sure why it took 50 years for “Araya” to reach New York, but let us be thankful to Milestone Films for giving life to this forgotten film.